US PRISONERS do not have a constitutional right to a DNA test that might prove their innocence, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Many inmates are seeking to take a DNA test in a bid to overturn a conviction. However, in some states there are no specific rules to grant access to such tests. The court ruled in a 5:4 decision that rules on who should be allowed DNA tests after conviction should be made by individual states and the US Congress, not federal courts.

Borrowing from the physics of invisibility cloaks could make it possible to hide buildings from the devastating effects of earthquakes, say physicists in France and the UK.

The "earthquake cloak" idea comes from the team led by Stefan Enoch at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France. They were the first to show that the physics of invisibility cloaks could have other applications – designing a cloak that could render objects "invisible" to destructive storm waves or tsunamis.

The seismic waves of an earthquake fall into two main groups: body waves that propagate through the Earth, and surface waves that travel only across the surface.

Although Enoch's team have calculated that controlling body waves would be too complex, controlling surface waves is within the ability of conventional engineering, they say. Fortunately, it is surface waves that are more destructive, says team member Sebastien Guenneau at the University of Liverpool in the UK.

The Sam’s Club in Salisbury, Maryland, is promoting its pharmacy by handing out pill bottles filled with candy to kids. I guess that’s better than filling Dots boxes with Vicodin. Or handing out gallon-sized jugs of Nerds.

On the downside, as a pill recipient at Salisbury News notes, “Now my 3 year old thinks all prescription pill bottles are just tasty snacks”.

Whistleblower Who Linked “Taliban” Leader to U.S. Intelligence is Assassinated
June 24th, 2009

Via: Prison Planet:

A whistleblower who defected from the Pakistani Taliban has been assassinated just days after he claimed that the group was working with US intelligence to destabilize the country.

Qari Zainuddin, a tribal leader of the South Waziristan region in Pakistan was shot dead on Tuesday by a gunman said to be loyal to Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Analysts said that Mr Zainuddin’s murder was a serious blow to the military campaign against the militants, as support of his faction was considered crucial, reports the London Times. “[It] is a warning to other pro government tribal commanders,” said Mahmood Shah, a retired brigadier who had served as top official in the tribal region.

PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer.

It’s not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at last May’s Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo, Ontario, where Daniel Burd, a high school student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, presented his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic.

NOTE: there are TWO high school students who discovered plastic-consuming microorganisms. The first was Daniel Burd (last year). The second was Tseng I-Ching (last month), a high school student in Taiwan.

Daniel had a thought it seems even the most esteemed PhDs hadn’t considered. Plastic, one of the most indestructible of manufactured materials, does in fact eventually decompose. It takes 1,000 years but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there to do the decomposing.

If the guidelines are approved, bloggers would have to back up claims and disclose if they’re being compensated — the FTC doesn’t currently plan to specify how. The FTC could order violators to stop and pay restitution to customers, and it could ask the Justice Department to sue for civil penalties.

Any type of blog could be scrutinized, not just ones that specialize in reviews.

So parents keeping blogs to update family members on their child’s first steps technically would fall under the FTC guidelines, though they likely would have little to worry about unless they accept payments or free products and write about them.

But they would need to think twice if, for instance, they praise parenting books they’ve just read and include links to buy them at a retailer like Amazon.com Inc.

That’s because the guidelines also would cover the broader and common practice of affiliate marketing, in which bloggers and other sites get a commission when someone clicks on a link that leads to a purchase at a retailer. In such cases, merchants also would be responsible for actions by their sales agents — including a network of bloggers.

The Beatles' success and influence were immeasurable, extending beyond music to culture and society as a whole. How did they do it: talent? Luck? Nope, a deal with Lucifer.

A new book called The Lennon Prophecy unveils the sinister secret of the Beatles' success: a pact which John Lennon made with the devil, which granted him exactly twenty years of unimaginable fame, fortune, and power, followed by his untimely death.

The book begins with a well-known remark Lennon made to his friend Tony Sheridan in the mid-1960s: “I’ve sold my soul to the Devil.”

Author Joseph Niezgoda then pinpoints December 27, 1960, a night on which the Beatles played at the Town Hall Ball Room in Litherland, England, as the eve on which twenty-year-old John Lennon, desperate to be "more famous than Elvis," sold his soul to Satan ... obviously, the Beatles' music, lyrics, and album art are laden with "clues."

I wonder if it isn't more plausible that the 1966 cover is a symbol of the Vietnam war rather than satanism. I don't see any classical satanic symbolism in that picture.

I am piqued though, I might read that book some day.

The problem with these things is always, which satan did he make a deal with?

Reporting from Lancaster, PA — This historic town, where America's founding fathers plotted during the Revolution and Milton Hershey later crafted his first chocolates, now boasts another distinction.

It may become the nation's most closely watched small city.

Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town's many tourists. That's more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston.

Unlike anywhere else, cash-strapped Lancaster outsourced its surveillance to a private nonprofit group that hires civilians to tilt, pan and zoom the cameras — and to call police if they spot suspicious activity. No government agency is directly involved.

Perhaps most surprising, the near-saturation surveillance of a community that saw four murders last year has sparked little public debate about whether the benefits for law enforcement outweigh the loss of privacy.

"Years ago, there's no way we could do this," said Keith Sadler, Lancaster's police chief. "It brings to mind Big Brother, George Orwell and '1984.' It's just funny how Americans have softened on these issues."